The present invention relates to a printing system for printing data instructed to be printed by an application at a printer. Specifically, the present invention relates to an improvement in a data processing method to enable application data to be printed out at any printers from every application having a printing function.
To print an electronic file prepared or edited by an application, there is known a system for embedding machine-readable code in the electronic file and printing the electronic file with the machine-readable code embedded. Some systems of this kind use electronic file identification information, for example, as the machine-readable code. In this case, the machine-readable code is embedded in a document file instructed to be printed from an application and the document file with the machine-readable code embedded is printed out, then the output paper is read and scanned through a code reader (scanner), whereby it is made possible to recognize the machine-readable code and to manage the electronic file related to the machine-readable code.
An electronic document retrieval system described in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 8-50598 is known as an example of a related system having a code addition and printing function intended for managing such print files. To print out an electronic document, the system outputs added information to the electronic document to paper and stores the electronic document in a database at the same time; particularly, a bar code is used as the added information output to paper and can be read to retrieve the electronic document.
In this kind of related system typified by the electronic document retrieval system described above, normally, to use one printer to print out the machine-readable code to an electronic file, a printer driver that can drive the printer and an application adapted to the printer driver are provided, needless to say.
This means that this kind of related system does not give consideration to allowing an electronic file prepared in one application to be printed at any printer.
Thus, in the related system, used printers are limited depending on the used application and used applications are limited depending on the used printer. Resultantly, there is significantly limited construction of such a system, for example, embedding machine-readable code in an electronic file and printing the electronic file with the machine-readable code embedded, then reading the machine-readable code for retrieving the electronic file related thereto.
It is therefore the first object of the present invention to provide a printing system and a data processing method thereof to enable application data to be printed out at any printer from every application having a printing function.
It is the second object of the present invention to provide a printing system and a data processing method thereof to enable application data to be printed out at any printer from an application even if machine-readable code is embedded in the application data and the application data with the machine-readable code embedded is printed.
It is the third object of the present invention to provide a printing system and a data processing method thereof to enable application data to be printed out at any printer from an application even if N-up print, etc., is executed for the application data.
It is the fourth object of the present invention to provide a printing system and a data processing method thereof capable of executing non-print processing operation of application data concurrently with print processing of the application data.
In order to achieve the above object, there is provided a printing system for printing application data instructed to be printed from an application at a printer, the printing system comprises: first intermediate data preparation means for preparing first intermediate data from the application data; second intermediate data preparation means for preparing second intermediate data having the same data format as the first intermediate data from the first intermediate data; and print data preparation means for preparing print data that can be processed at the printer from the second intermediate data.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, the second intermediate data preparation means includes data merge means for merging machine-readable code into the first intermediate data, thereby preparing the second intermediate data.
The machine-readable code is at least any one of identification information, print date information, number-of-page information, source host device information, and preparation operation system name information of the application data.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, the second intermediate data preparation means includes data conversion means for converting the fist intermediate data into data corresponding to print control information specified accompanying the print instruction, thereby preparing the second intermediate data.
The print control information is any one of control information pieces specifying N-up print, scaled-up print, and scaled-down print for the application data.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, the printing system further comprises: operation instruction means for specifying non-print processing operation other than print processing for the application data; and non-print processing control means for executing the non-print processing operation instructed by the operation instruction means while print data preparation processing is performed by the print data preparation means.
The non-print processing operation is at least any one of processing operation of registering the second intermediate data in a server, processing operation of transmitting the second intermediate data by mail, and processing operation of transmitting the second intermediate data with a facsimile machine.
In order to achieve the above object, there is also adopted a data processing method of a printing system for printing application data instructed to be printed from an application at a printer, the data processing method comprising the steps of: preparing first intermediate data from the application data; preparing second intermediate data having the same data format as the first intermediate data from the first intermediate data; and preparing print data that can be processed at the printer from the second intermediate data.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, machine-readable code is merged into the first intermediate data, thereby preparing the second intermediate data.
The machine-readable code is at least any one of identification information, print date information, number-of-page information, source host device information, and information of operation system name in which the application data is prepared.
According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, the first intermediate data is converted into data corresponding to print control information specified accompanying the print instruction, thereby preparing the second intermediate data.
The print control information is any one of control information pieces specifying N-up print, scaled-up print, and scaled-down print for the application data.
According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, the data processing method further comprises the steps of: specifying selectively non-print processing operation other than print processing for the application data; and executing the instructed non-print processing operation while performing print data preparation processing.
The non-print processing operation is at least any one of processing operation of registering the second intermediate data in a server, processing operation of transmitting the second intermediate data by mail, and processing operation of transmitting the second intermediate data with a facsimile machine.